


Turning Point

by Closer



Category: Captain America, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Fear, Gen, History, Mindfuck, Obsessive-Compulsive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Closer/pseuds/Closer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Tony live each other's memories only for a moment, but the fallout lasts longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for descriptions of obsessive-compulsive behavior, and discussion of mental illness.

Stark touches the machine first, because that's what Tony Stark does, he touches and explores, and he leaps into danger for some reason Steve will never understand.

Steve doesn't touch the machine but he does touch Stark, trying to pull him away. 

"Stark, not until we know what it -- "

An electric spark passes through them both, in this lab they found after ripping through a hundred AIM agents to get here, and --

* * *

Tony is twenty-two and terrified, shirtless and trembling with cold and fear. He's strapped to a table with machinery all around him and scientists and senators staring at him. He desperately wants to seem brave in front of Peggy, though, and to be good for Dr. Erskine, to make him proud. 

So he lies there and lets the needles push chemicals into his blood, and they burn and mix with the adrenaline from the fear and he worries, suddenly, that he will die here on this table.

The walls close in around him, a sarcophagus like the one he saw at a museum once, a tight closed space where he can't breathe.

And then the pain begins, and Tony _screams_.

* * *

Steve is ten years old and sitting on thick soft carpet by the fire, head on his mother's knee, and he knows he has to ask. He doesn't want to, but he has to. 

"Is dad crazy?" 

His mother strokes his hair, soothing. "No, sweetheart. He's just a little confused sometimes." 

Dad washes his hands when he comes out of the workshop, sometimes until they bleed. He flicks lights on when he enters a room -- on and off, on and off and on -- and he counts bites of food on his plate. Steve watches, his mind always working, hyper-aware of his father's behavior. But Steve makes it worse, with his questions, with his careless mess, with the way he only washes his hands once after leaving the shop with his father. 

Steve doesn't want to go to boarding school. The other children aren't like him and he'll miss the workshop. But he knows he has to, because he makes Dad worse, and if he goes, Dad won't suffer so badly.

"The war hurt him," Mom says. "I know you don't understand right now, but someday you will."

Steve can do this for Dad. He loves his father and wants him to be happy, wants him to like Steve, and he can do that if Steve is away at school and all Dad sees is his report cards and letters home. 

Mom's fingers card through his curly black hair, and Steve resigns himself. His life does not belong to him. Never has. Never will. 

* * *

After the mission they're quiet. Natasha teases them on the flight back to Stark Tower, and Steve summons a weak smile for her, but Tony sits in the armor, helmet still firmly shut, and says nothing. 

It's only their third fight as a team.

Steve knows better (knows better now, anyway) than to talk to Stark once they reach the Tower. The rest of the team vanishes into the elevators, heading for their rooms and rest. Steve goes too, but he knows that Stark lingers, waiting until they're gone before stripping the armor. Now's not the time. They need space to breathe.

But not too much space. They can't go too long like this. 

When Steve goes back up to the penthouse later that night, Stark is sitting by the tall glass walls, a bottle of vodka on the table next to him and a glass in his hand. 

"I know you can't get drunk," Stark says. "I've read my father's notes on you. Help yourself anyway, if you want, but it's cheap and it burns."

Steve seats himself against the glass, facing Stark, arms propped on his drawn-up knees. 

"You want to go first, or should I?" he asks. 

"Oh, by all means," Stark replies, gesturing at him. 

Steve nods, staring at his arms. Large, thick arms, and it may only have taken him a day or two to understand his new body but it has taken him years to get used to it.

"Howard was always particular," he says finally. "All his tools in order. Instruments aligned. Everything ship-shape. I always admired how tidy he was."

Stark snorts.

"I did. I felt...inelegant next to him. Never quite dressed right, never quite clean enough. But he wasn't like _that_ when I knew him."

"Mom said the war changed him. The bomb changed him," Stark says quietly. "Stress can aggravate the condition. Were you friends?"

"Don't know. It was always hard to tell, with Howard. I like to think we were."

"Never did stop looking for you," Stark adds. 

"I know," Steve says, and he does know now; he knows that Stark's parents fought about Howard's endless quest for the body of his dead friend, about whether that would redeem him for the horror of the bomb. About how Maria thought Tony blamed himself for his father's behavior. 

There's a long silence. The glass is smooth and cold against his back.

"You were so small," Stark says finally. 

"I was."

"You were small and sick and frightened."

"Yeah."

"They locked you up in this...thing and they tortured you and if you died there would be precisely one person who would truly mourn you, and then only if he heard." Stark looks at him, movements a little unsteady. Christ, Steve wishes he could get drunk. 

"Yes," Steve says evenly.

"It hurt so much."

"Yes."

"And you thought you were dying. And you still told them to keep going. Because by then you had nothing to lose."

Steve looks down at his hands. They're enormous, big strong deft hands, and Tony's father and Dr. Erskine gave them to him.

"I wish I was there," he blurts. He won't look up. "I wish I'd survived. I'd have been his friend, I'd have come to visit on Sundays for dinner, I'd have been there to tell you -- I'd have been there to look after you." He makes fists with his large, capable hands. "If wishes were horses."

"I wish you'd had a friend there. I wish he'd been a friend for you," Stark murmurs. 

This conversation is too intimate for strangers or friends, and they are not friends, but -- 

"You worry you'll lose it someday," Stark says.

"You worry you'll end up like him," Steve replies. 

"I already am," Stark answers, and takes a long drink of straight vodka, swallowing, hissing when it burns. "I don't like having things handed to me. Sometimes I have to tap the counter twice before I can drink. When the suit goes on it takes twenty seconds exactly because if it took twenty-one I'd have to start over again. S'why I like computers. You tell them to do something and they do it the same way, every time."

"Stark -- Tony -- "

"It's not as bad as he had it, but someday it might be." He takes another swallow. "There's medication I could try. Not quite there yet."

"You're not crazy."

"Sure I am. That's not why, but I am. So are you."

Steve nods. Stark is silent enough that he finally looks up, and the other man's eyes are dark and wide, sunk deep, too big for his face. 

"You don't like enclosed spaces. The bunkers always made you twitchy. You hate to be alone because you're afraid of dying unmourned and you are _so alone_ now," Stark says. "Jesus Christ, I was an ass."

"No more than I was," Steve replies. 

"Stay here tonight."

Steve nods. After a while he asks, "Where's your girl?"

"Pep? California this week. Back in two days. Company won't run itself."

"You love her?"

He expects Stark to blow him off, but instead he just nods. "Too soon to tell if that's enough."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Spoken like a boy who never had a girl," Stark says, not unkindly. "Love's only a piece of it. The rest is ego and circumstance." 

"No," Steve says firmly. "Love's enough."

"If you say so, Captain. Do an old army buddy's son a favor, and help me up."

Steve stands, pulling Stark's offered hand to get him upright. They walk quietly down the hall together, and in the remarkably spartan bedroom Stark pulls back the blankets and faceplants in the bed, rolling onto his side.

Steve climbs in the other side, lying with his back to Stark's. He used to sleep like this with Bucky, in camp. 

"Are we friends now?" he asks. "Tony?"

There's a sigh from Tony. "Fuck knows you need one."

"Howard was never easy either," Steve says, and Tony laughs quietly. "You think it's too late?"

"For what?"

"I don't know. For everything. To be different. To get past it all. To be happy, maybe."

"I used to think so. Now I think it's not. Dunno about you." Tony yawns. "Too late to go back, though. Might as well go forward."

"Sure." Steve feels the movement of Tony breathing against his back. "For what it's worth, I'd rather it was you. Than any of the others, I mean."

"Me too," Tony mumbles, and then he's asleep. Steve lies awake a while, listening to his breath. 

Eventually he sleeps too, and for once doesn't dream about watching everyone he loves fall away from him.


End file.
